Oh, you guys don’t get them. There’s no UI for it presently. But they’re there. Just like in Galactic Civilizations but much more sophisticated.

Did I mention you guys don’t get them right now?

One of the things I’ve been working on is getting the AI to use them in ways far beyond what I’ve done in GalCiv or other AI’s before. Using rally points intelligently (and without using a lot of CPU time) is a serious trick.

Now, in the screenshot above, the AI’s archer army is building up just outside of town even though those armies had to collect together from a very long way away.

While simple on the surface to do, there’s a lot of thought that has to go into making this work (otherwise, the player could just figure out where the rally points are and station an army there ready to pick them off, there’s a lot of timing involve to make sure units aren’t vulnerable long).

Wouldn't it make more sense to gather the army in friendly territory and then move it? Seems very dangerous to leave singular units so close to the enemy city. Even if it's just a few more tiles back, it should at least be outside of sight range for the player.

Not a singular unit, that's part of the trick. They gather in small armies and merge later.

Here's a tactical battle debug. I don't know how much time I'll get to work on tactical battles prior to the public beta but it's an area I'm very interested in since the strategic AI is starting to get to the point of diminishing returns.

I think players will get wiped out by quests too, but we're jerks and just reload. Difficulty level would be a good thing to give the AI, or some way of predicting what the return on investment could be. If the quest is likely to give an item they don't need then maybe it gets devalued, but if they can get a hero, maybe it makes the risk worth taking.